DaveChaffey.comhttp://www.davechaffey.com
Cutting-edge insights on Digital Strategy, Conversion Optimization, Search and Email Marketing
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1 https://wordpress.org/?v=5.1.1http://www.davechaffey.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/davechaffeylower-res-150x150.pngDr Dave Chaffey : Digital Insightshttp://www.davechaffey.com
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Wed, 08 May 2019 15:03:37 +0000http://www.davechaffey.com/?p=493Research from Smart Insights shows that many businesses still don’t have a defined digital marketing strategy, despite everyone doing digital marketing. The research also shows that many of those without a plan are looking to improve their competitiveness online, so 31% are aiming to launch a digital transformation project. Why aren’t more businesses actively planning? […]

Why aren’t more businesses actively planning? Perhaps one reason for the lack of strategic digital plans is that digital marketing is complex and it can be difficult to know where to start. So, in this post, I’ll outline the potential ingredients of a solid digital plan based on my experience of working with many businesses of all types and sizes to structure digital plans. You’ll see there are many things to get right, which perhaps explains why it’s surprisingly common to not have a plan.

If you already have a plan, use this article as a checklist to see how yours compares, since a digital plan shouldn’t be a static document, but should be updated as your digital maturity improves and new opportunities become available.

1. Defines a process for plan creation and roll-out. To make your plan have an impact it needs to include both strategy, tactics and actions to implement. PR Smith’s SOSTAC® model provides a popular process framework, particularly for larger business. For smaller businesses and shorter plans, my preference is a simpler process framework that that we will use here to group the recommendations of the elements of a perfect plan, that’s Opportunity > Strategy > Action. I recommend you structure the digital marketing activities you need to work on in the Smart Insights RACE digital marketing planning framework.

If you think there are a scary number of activities here, remember many of these ingredients are needed to inform the strategy and schedule actions to implement it. If you’re short on time, ultimately your strategy can be a single page defining your objectives, a strategy to achieve them and how you will measure whether you are on track.

Define your opportunity

2. Set SMART objectives. To ensure your plan makes a difference to the future growth of the business, it’s important that it’s not limited to lofty, general aspirations. Instead it should be informed by a conversion model showing the value which will be generated.

3. Review current performance and business contribution from digital channels. In my experience, you can’t set objectives without looking at how digital is measured and reported on using Google Analytics or similar. Often, Google Analytics hasn’t been customized for a business, particularly where it is a non-transactional business like B2B. We’ll return to this in the Action section.

4. Objectives informed by audience and marketplace insights. You have your own insight collected about your online audience and competitors. Plus there are lots of great free resources from the major platforms like Facebook, Google and LinkedIn showing the demand for products in different markets based on search intent or the amount of interest in different services.

5. Share your digital vision. Larger organizations with transformation projects should define a vision, so you should paint a picture of the future organization that will help take others in the business with you.

6. Review the digital maturity of the organization. Scoring the business on its digital readiness, i.e. how well it competes on digital is useful both for identifying strategic initiatives that are needed, but also for making the case to stakeholders of how much the business needs to change and the investment needed.

7. Review employees digital skills. Re-skilling to compete with digital marketing will be needed in all businesses since digital skills change so fast and digital specialists may need to develop more general marketing communications skills. As part of situation review you can review the changes needed.

8. Benchmark relative to competitors. Another way of identifying initiatives and showing the changes needed and making the case for change is to show where your competitors are at, especially when they are ahead. Remember these shouldn’t be limited to direct competitors, but also competitors for attention, i.e. publishers and bloggers who are looking to engage similar audiences with their content.

Set your Strategy

9. Create a long-term roadmap. It’s likely that the strategic initiatives you develop as part of your digital strategy won’t be achieved within 6 months or even a year. Although there will be ‘quick wins’, your business will need to invest in new media and technology, create new processes and structures and develop the skills to support them. This won’t happen overnight, so your digital transformation roadmap will need to cover a 2 or 3-year lookahead and integrate with longer-term business plans.

10. Integrated with business and marketing plans. It’s essential that your digital plans align with your wider goals for the business. So show how digital initiatives align with the business.

11. Review new business model options. Often, digital marketing strategy is restricted to communications plans and the opportunity for impacting business or marketing plans aren’t considered. While they won’t be relevant in all cases, you should consider how digital communications give options for new product development or new targeting options to reach new types of audiences in different ways.

12. Includes acquisition and retention activities. There is a tendency for communications strategies to focus on how to win new customers and business. Digital strategies can ‘fall foul’ of this limitation too, so ideally, they should consider using digital communications for retention and advocacy. The website, email marketing and social media are all important here and have a role to play in advocacy and amplification to gain new customers too. The digital strategy should explain how you will review digital loyalty drivers and automate personalized messaging via the site and email to meet your retention goals.

13. Define Segmentation and Targeting techniques. STP or Segmentation, Targeting and Positioning are at the heart of marketing strategy. Similarly, they should have a starring role in Digital Strategy. This is because digital media give so many new options to use targeting to recruit and nurture prospects more closely. I recommend summarizing a ‘layered targeting strategy’ as part of your strategy including personas, profile, behavioural and interest-based targeting. Dynamic content can then be used within ads, on-site, messaging and in-app personalization to deliver more relevant, more contextual communications. But only if you plan it. The Martech supports this, but you have to define your targeting strategy.

14. Updated brand positioning including your digital value proposition (DVP). Existing businesses will typically have a brand story and brand messaging in place. Digital brings new ways to bring it to life, for example through video and social media sharing. Developing refined tone-of-voice and style guidance for online channels like web and social media is part of this.

15. Digital value proposition (DVP) and user experience. In my books, dating way back to 2000, I recommended business review their ‘OVP’ or Online Value Proposition as part of strategy. Clearly a website needs to communicate the core brand offering, but digital gives great opportunities to add value to an audience and so develop brand preference and support purchase intent. Today, a DVP or digital value proposition has a wider scope and can also be delivered via mobile apps, social media updates, email messaging or even virtual reality, augmented reality and Artificial Intelligence. For example, the bank ING uses AI to alert it’s customers to their spending patterns and when they have a risk of becoming overdrawn. The quality of digital experience becomes crucial since if competitors provide a better experience, it’s inevitable you will lose business, so auditing and continuously improving the quality of experience is essential.

16. Content marketing strategy. The content you offer via your different digital platforms is a big part of DVP and experience too. So auditing content quality and how it can be improved to better support marketing objectives is often a key digital strategic initiative. Content also has a wider role since it fuels customer acquisition, conversion and retention, for example through content developed and distributed through organic and paid search, social and email marketing. Given the explosion in content we have witnessed, getting cut-through compared to competitors and creating stellar content needs to be the goal. ‘Me too’ content won’t cut it. Content marketing strategy also includes content distribution and a key technique here is influencer relationship management (IRM), which many businesses aren’t familiar with, so this is another strategic digital initiative to consider.

17. Communications and engagement strategy for ‘always-on’ marketing. One of the key differences that digital marketing has brought compared to traditional marketing is that communications can be automated through the customer lifecycle. Customer are continuously searching for products and services so automation can be used to nurture them towards initial and subsequent sales. One of the biggest digital failings of many businesses is that they haven’t put in sufficient time to plan and optimize their ‘always-on’ activities which include site landing pages, nurture and re-engagement email communications, personalized website communications and retargeting using paid media.

18. New integrated campaign planning processes. That said, there is still a role for campaign communications to launch new products, run seasonal promotions and brand-led campaigns. These too give opportunities to use similar automated techniques to always-on communications, but campaign briefing, planning and editorial processes need to be updated to incorporate these too.

19. Marketing technology and insight. To implement the strategy will require investment in new ‘martech’ which today are typically cloud services. There are big decisions to be made here about selecting ‘best of breed’ specialist solutions versus broader marketing cloud services and how these are managed. Managing audience and marketplace insight is closely related since data integration between separate solutions is rated as a major challenge by most.

20. Brand governance. This may include new planning processes or new controls on communications such as privacy reviews for digital data security, social media employee use policies and digital crisis response plans as part of public relations. In the action section we describe changes to budgeting processes and the development of internal resources that accompany digital transformation.

Plan your actions

21. 90-day action planning. From the techniques we’ve covered, it’s likely your strategy and roadmap will contain many digital initiatives! Within each of these will be sub-activities which will need to be defined and implemented at a more granular level. We recommend 90-day action plans for each quarter which show the focus on different techniques across paid, owned and earned media and for improving the digital experience. For example, different AB tests can be scheduled each quarter for different parts of the customer journey to improve experience and conversion.

22. Identify the quick wins. You want to prove that your increased digital investment is delivering improvements, so prioritising quick wins within the 90-day plan will be a natural place to start with your 90-day plans which should also include setting the ground-work for longer-term plays.

23. Define dashboards and KPIs to review progression against target. In the ‘Opportunity’ section we mentioned that often analytics need to be customized to show specific goals for a business. Related to this is that work needs to be done outside Google Analytics to create dashboards to review performance against targets and corrective action, another aspect of 90-day action planning. I recommend using what I call the VQVC or Volume-Quality-Value-Cost metrics in dashboards since I find that often dashboards are limited to Volume metrics. To create business dashboards, data from different insight sources can be extracted using APIs to create dashboards as explained in this article.

24. REACH improvements. I recommend structuring the different strategic initiatives for your 90-day plans under the different parts of the Smart Insights RACE planning framework since includes a ‘Plan’ section covering governance activities. Your Reach initiative will covers critical success factors for the main channels and based on priortized improvements needed across organic and paid search, social media marketing, Online ads and influencer marketing.

25. ACT Improvements. These include improvements to the customer journey through site redesigns and AB testing for lead generation plus content quality and blog editorial planning improvements.

26. CONVERT improvements. Depending on the type of business these should include implementing and optimizing both online and offline touchpoints that lead to conversion to sale. These include nurture using email, push notifications and ad retargeting. Multichannel sales support through via phone sales and Livechat are also included.

27. ENGAGE improvements. The Engage part of RACE focuses on customer communications for retention and advocacy. Communications strategy are needed for all on-site and off-site automated messaging. Plus the digital customer experience including onboarding and customer service should be considered here.

28. Detailed budget. Once identified and prioritized, all activities across paid, owned and earned media needed to be budgeted for to include media costs, staff costs, marketing technology, data and agency or consultant input. Digital makes for complex budgets if you build them ‘bottom-up’, which you should.

29. Detailed resourcing plan. This will include internal re-skilling needed through training or acquiring new talent. Restructuring of teams may also be needed. It will also include review of the use of agencies to deliver against digital communications targets.

I warned it was complex, but it can and should be simplified since it’s essential that the strategic initiatives are clear to others in your business. So make sure that as you build up the strategy you include a 1–2 page summary table of SMART objectives, agreed digital initiatives to achieve them and KPIs to make sure you are on track.

There is strong growth in social media and the report provides more detail on this. Data from Global Web Index shows that despite its privacy problems, Facebook continues to be number one in terms of active user accounts.

]]>http://www.davechaffey.com/digital-marketing-trends/annual-digital-growth-continues/iOS apps for blind iPhone usershttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/davechaffey/~3/swGW2h_m8Go/
Fri, 15 Mar 2019 17:33:42 +0000http://www.davechaffey.com/?p=438There are few dedicated apps I know of from my work in helping visually impaired and unsighted people for AbilityNet. Working with a man with complete sight loss has introduced me to a few apps which I’m recording here to share and for reference for the future. Please let me know of any others you […]

]]>There are few dedicated apps I know of from my work in helping visually impaired and unsighted people for AbilityNet. Working with a man with complete sight loss has introduced me to a few apps which I’m recording here to share and for reference for the future. Please let me know of any others you have found useful.

A great starting point for blind users to learn Voiceover due to the simplicity of the app and Voiceover can be used to read the tutorial. The first tutorials step visitors through gestures on the iPhone plus there are some simple games.

Billed as a ‘Talking Camera’ for the Blind, this is a powerful app which uses the iPhone camera to read printed material – that’s the main value for an unsighted person.

It also has some ‘fun features’ to describe a person or room.
Usability can be a challenge and it can drain the battery, so explain that it should be closed after use to ensure the light is switched off.

Billed as ‘EasyReader is a FREE accessible reading app for readers with dyslexia, low vision or blindness.’

This app has better accessibility than most apps and is relatively easy to add books from different library. Supports the RNIB Overdrive programme if you have a login. If not, as other free books that can be read out using Voiceover or built-in synthetic sounding reader. Also supports audio books.

]]>http://www.davechaffey.com/assistive-technology/ios-for-blind-and-visually-impaired/ios-apps-for-blind-iphone-users/What is digital marketing?http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/davechaffey/~3/uEbw0h6VEfM/
Sun, 10 Mar 2019 18:19:30 +0000http://www.davechaffey.com/?p=432 Introducing the 5Ds of managing digital marketing To understand how best to manage digital marketing in a business, it’s useful to scope out what digital marketing involves; which activities are required. I’ve found that without this shared understanding within a business, digital marketing won’t get the investment needed. This may seem like an academic exercise, […]

To understand how best to manage digital marketing in a business, it’s useful to scope out what digital marketing involves; which activities are required. I’ve found that without this shared understanding within a business, digital marketing won’t get the investment needed. This may seem like an academic exercise, but it’s needed since there is often still an education job to do on colleagues in a business who ‘hold the purse strings’ of digital marketing.

To take some examples of misconceptions of digital marketing, here are some classics that I’ve heard and I guess you may have also:

Digital marketing is our website

Digital marketing is our Facebook page

As you can see, these narrow the scope of digital marketing drastically and it means that digital won’t get the cash to compete. For the latest edition of Digital Marketing, Strategy, Implementation and Practice, I’ve developed the 5Ds of digital marketing as a simple mnemonic to explain what needs to be managed:

Digital platforms – most interactions on these devices are through a browser or apps from the major ‘platforms’ or online services, that’s Facebook (and Instagram), Google (and YouTube), Twitter, LinkedIn, Apple, Amazon and Microsoft.

Digital media – different communications channels for reaching and engaging audiences including advertising, email and messaging, search engines and social networks.

Digital data – the insight businesses collect about their audience profiles and their interactions with businesses which now needs to be protected by law in most countries

Digital technology – the marketing technology or martech that businesses use to create interactive experiences from websites and mobile apps to in-store kiosks and email campaigns

Of these, it’s encouraging interactions on digital platforms using digital media which are most important to increase Reach. These often also involve integration with other digital channels.

]]>http://www.davechaffey.com/digital-marketing-definitions/what-is-digital-marketing/Teaching iOS voiceover gestures and using the Rotor to an unsighted personhttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/davechaffey/~3/dLnUUP3xe7Y/
Sat, 09 Mar 2019 18:46:32 +0000http://www.davechaffey.com/?p=430As part of my voluntary work for Ability Net, I’ve recently been working with a registered blind man to help him switch from using an old Nokia with keys to using an Apple iPhone. I thought it would be straightforward enough to do this since I had worked with other partially sighted people switching to […]

]]>As part of my voluntary work for Ability Net, I’ve recently been working with a registered blind man to help him switch from using an old Nokia with keys to using an Apple iPhone. I thought it would be straightforward enough to do this since I had worked with other partially sighted people switching to an iPhone.

The challenge is that each app has a different navigation model and it’s hard for the blind person to visualise and understand the navigation model if they have never used or seen a smartphone before they came blind. These are the steps I’d recommend to make it manageable. For a one hour teaching and learning session each step could take 2 or 3 sessions to reinforce each.

1. Start by teaching Siri for making and receiving calls and sending texts

The rotor has MANY options, I recommend simplifying these intially (in General, Accessibility, and teaching these main options applying them to Messages app to start. Start with moving between messages and then deleting them using actions.

]]>http://www.davechaffey.com/assistive-technology/ios-for-blind-and-visually-impaired/teaching-ios-voiceover-gestures-and-using-the-rotor-to-an-unsighted-person/Keeping up-to-date with Google’s marketing and advertising featureshttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/davechaffey/~3/BmoyLZECsBU/
Fri, 22 Feb 2019 15:35:41 +0000http://www.davechaffey.com/?p=90All marketer’s know the importance of Google, especially in markets where there is a high-level of search intent from consumers or businesses, i.e. people are looking for products, services or providers. I’m writing this post to share the best sources to learn about Google changes, both from Google themselves and other sites. I’ve needed to […]

]]>All marketer’s know the importance of Google, especially in markets where there is a high-level of search intent from consumers or businesses, i.e. people are looking for products, services or providers.

I’m writing this post to share the best sources to learn about Google changes, both from Google themselves and other sites. I’ve needed to work through this since with the Google’s New Marketing Platform they have restructured the support for many products, so need to update the feeds I track in Feedly.

]]>http://www.davechaffey.com/digital-marketing-trends/keeping-up-to-date-with-googles-marketing-and-advertising-features/Best option for a blind person to answer the phone on iPhone?http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/davechaffey/~3/V7TRYImmULc/
Sat, 16 Feb 2019 17:08:32 +0000http://www.davechaffey.com/?p=81Sighted iPhone users will take tapping the green button on the screen to answer for-granted, but for the visually impaired and particularly for blind phone users this is a major challenge to tap or swipe the button as these threads on the Apple Support forums show. When helping the visually-impaired setup their iPhones for the […]

]]>Sighted iPhone users will take tapping the green button on the screen to answer for-granted, but for the visually impaired and particularly for blind phone users this is a major challenge to tap or swipe the button as these threads on the Apple Support forums show.

When helping the visually-impaired setup their iPhones for the first time in my work for the Ability Net charity, this is the first part of setup and it took me a while to get it right, since like many accessibility issues it’s not explained well by Apple.

There are two options to answer the phone without looking at the screen:

Turn on Voiceover and do a two finger tap twice to pick up or hang up

Auto-answer incoming calls

I’ll also show how you can automatically turn on the speakerphone on answer so it is easier to hear.

Turn voiceover and then use a two-finger tap twice to pick up or hang up

This is an essential stage of phone customisation anyway for most visually impaired users since it enables the built-in screen reader.

It’s available from Settings > General > Accessibility

However, when I first used this, there was still the question of how you swipe the answer button?

It’s simple, when you know how… since the Green Answer button has focus, you simply

Tap twice anywhere on the screen with two fingers…

This is of course, also true for activating other menu options which have focus.

There is also the less well-known option of holding one finger to the screen and tapping with the other.

]]>http://www.davechaffey.com/assistive-technology/ios-for-blind-and-visually-impaired/best-option-for-a-blind-person-to-answer-the-phone-on-iphone/Set up voice control on an iPhone for Blind and visually impaired usershttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/davechaffey/~3/QBkJOVNCOxY/
Sat, 19 Jan 2019 17:00:30 +0000http://dchaffey.webfactional.com/?p=12Who is this post for? The aim of this post is to explain to sighted people how to set up voice control on Apple iPhones for friends or family who are visually impaired or blind. The two main tools for using your phone with voice are VoiceOver which reads the screen and options and the […]

The aim of this post is to explain to sighted people how to set up voice control on Apple iPhones for friends or family who are visually impaired or blind. The two main tools for using your phone with voice are VoiceOver which reads the screen and options and the newer Siri voice commands.

There are lots of great guides to doing this by visually impaired bloggers, but they are writing for their audience who may already be knowledgeable about the assistive features of iPhone

Why am I writing this post?

I’m writing this article to support my voluntary work for the charity Ability Net UK which involves setting up and troubleshooting software for different devices like computers, smartphones and smart speakers. This is to help the many people who need accessibility features set up to use these devices including people who are visually impaired, disabled or older people who need assistive technology, for example, people who have had a stroke.

This is a checklist / step-by-step reference for me as I learn about the best techniques myself, but I hope others may find it useful too when setting up voice-activated features for their friends, family or themselves.

Views are my own and I’m not representing AbilityNet.

Steps to setting up access

These steps are how I prefer to set up, based on experience, but the steps can be varied to suit. A few of the steps are optional depending on the tradeoff between security and ease of use.

Step 1. Switch off passcode (optional)

Passcodes are very difficult, if not impossible, for the visually impaired to enter the 4 or 6 digit code, so I recommend not using them, unless it’s important you want to restrict access to confidential information or apps. It’s a decision to be discussed with each user. If they are starting by using the phone for calling only, with Siri, a common scenario, then I think they’re unnecessary.

How?

1. Choose Settings, then TouchID and Passcode.

2. In TouchID & Passcode, Turn Passcode Off.

Step 2. Switch off TouchID (optional)

Like with passcodes, these TouchID or Face recognition can be difficult since it can be hard to see whether the security option has been passed or not, so in my view, it’s best to keep the phone open, at least initially.

How?

1. Choose Settings, then TouchID and Passcode.

2. Set ‘Use TouchID for’ off for iPhone Unlock and other options

3. Turn on VoiceOver

VoiceOver speaks items on the screen as you tap to select or slide your finger between menu options and you then confirm you want to select the option by double tap.

Scrolling is achieved through using three fingers.

How?

1. Choose Accessibility from Settings General

2. Choose Voiceover from Accessibility

3. Turn VoiceOver On

Shortcut – You can turn Speech Off by tapping Three times with three fingers.

There are also options to speak selection and speak the screen by swiping down with two fingers from the top of the screen.

Siri

Siri is a fantastic tool for the visually impaired since it enables you to ask the phone to do things for you like calling people on the phone or doing a search. It’s like its cousin Amazon Alexa used in smartspeakers. Make sure you get a sufficiently powerful iPhone as explained below.

How?

Switch Siri on using the Siri & Search Settings.

Select both the Listen for ‘Hey Siri’ and ‘Press Home for Siri’

Common problems to avoid

Is the case causing a problem with the microphone or speaker?

The design of many cases will make it difficult for the microphone or speaker to work effectively.

Which iPhone version is best?

I’ve found that for it to work you do need an iPhone with a sufficiently loud speaker and powerful enough processor. The larger format iPhone 7 Plus and 8 Plus are best for this.

It’s arguably also best to have a button to activate, so you can argue that older models with a home button like the 7 and 8 are better than the newer iPhone X models which don’t have buttons. I’ve seen people have to return second hand iPhone 6S because they were not powerful enough in sound or fast enough.

]]>http://www.davechaffey.com/assistive-technology/ios-for-blind-and-visually-impaired/set-up-voice-control-on-an-iphone-for-blind-and-visually-impaired-users/Top-rated digital marketing trends in 2019http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/davechaffey/~3/dKxeoP3Snh8/
Sat, 12 Jan 2019 16:47:18 +0000http://dchaffey.webfactional.com/?p=8I find it really interesting to follow the trends in new marketing techniques enabled by new innovations in technology and how they’re managed. To gain an idea of the most important trends to businesses, each year we ask our members to rate THE most important digital marketing technique. In our latest research, we asked which tactics […]

]]>I find it really interesting to follow the trends in new marketing techniques enabled by new innovations in technology and how they’re managed. To gain an idea of the most important trends to businesses, each year we ask our members to rate THE most important digital marketing technique.

In our latest research, we asked which tactics marketers think are most important with the question:

“Please give the digital marketing technique which you hope will give the biggest commercial uplift in 2019.”

These are the top rated trends from the report.

There are four clear leading techniques, here’s my view on why these tactics form the top five techniques.

#1 Content marketing – this has featured consistently in the top 3 for several years. I think it’s number 1 since content marketing can be applied by all types of business regardless of their sector or size and if the right strategy is followed can make an impact that supports communications across all touchpoint of the customer lifecycle. It fuels all digital channels from search, email and social media marketing. This makes having a defined content marketing strategy essential to competing in many sectors.

#2 Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning – This is an exciting ‘new entry’ into the top 5 and suggests that marketers now believe they will see a return from deploying the latest AI tools supporting the many marketing applications for AI we review in this infographic. Within AI, I believe the most popular marketing applications will enhance personalization and marketing automation which brings us to…

#3 Marketing automation and email marketing – This is also a perennial feature in our top five and it’s no surprise since, like content marketing, it’s effective for both B2C and B2B marketing. While some more mature organizations will make improvements through use of AI, other less mature businesses will benefit from improving the relevance and timing of their emails through using rules-based automation and personalisation.

#4 Big Data (including market and customer insight and predictive analytics) – It’s good to see big data in the top five since we believe in the power of data-driven marketing. Big data analysis such as predictive analytics typically requires larger budgets, so will be restricted mainly for larger organisations, but the use of market and customer insight using the tools shown in our Martech tools wheel is open to all businesses and I think is why this is a relatively popular choice.

#5 CRO and improving website experiences – This is the first time that CRO has featured in the top 5, which is again a sign of increased adoption of data-driven marketing as processes improve in organizations who can now run ‘always-on’ improvements using structured AB testing programmes. There is also the option of new lower-cost tools including Google Optimize which is freely available.

]]>http://www.davechaffey.com/digital-marketing-trends/top-rated-digital-marketing-trends-in-2019/Top-rated digital marketing trends in 2019http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/davechaffey/~3/I_kx6wk6ifs/
Thu, 10 Jan 2019 11:05:09 +0000http://blog.davechaffey.com/?p=424I find it really interesting to follow the trends in new marketing techniques enabled by new innovations in technology and how they’re managed. To gain an idea of the most important trends to businesses, each year we ask our members to rate THE most important digital marketing technique. In our latest research, we asked which tactics […]

]]>I find it really interesting to follow the trends in new marketing techniques enabled by new innovations in technology and how they’re managed. To gain an idea of the most important trends to businesses, each year we ask our members to rate THE most important digital marketing technique.
In our latest research, we asked which tactics marketers think are most important with the question:

“Please give the digital marketing technique which you hope will give the biggest commercial uplift in 2019.”

These are the top rated trends from the report.
There are four clear leading techniques, here’s my view on why these tactics form the top five techniques.

#1 Content marketing – this has featured consistently in the top 3 for several years. I think it’s number 1 since content marketing can be applied by all types of business regardless of their sector or size and if the right strategy is followed can make an impact that supports communications across all touchpoint of the customer lifecycle. It fuels all digital channels from search, email and social media marketing. This makes having a defined content marketing strategy essential to competing in many sectors.

#2 Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning – This is an exciting ‘new entry’ into the top 5 and suggests that marketers now believe they will see a return from deploying the latest AI tools supporting the many marketing applications for AI we review in this infographic. Within AI, I believe the most popular marketing applications will enhance personalization and marketing automation which brings us to…

#3 Marketing automation and email marketing – This is also a perennial feature in our top five and it’s no surprise since, like content marketing, it’s effective for both B2C and B2B marketing. While some more mature organizations will make improvements through use of AI, other less mature businesses will benefit from improving the relevance and timing of their emails through using rules-based automation and personalisation.

#4 Big Data (including market and customer insight and predictive analytics) – It’s good to see big data in the top five since we believe in the power of data-driven marketing. Big data analysis such as predictive analytics typically requires larger budgets, so will be restricted mainly for larger organisations, but the use of market and customer insight using the tools shown in our Martech tools wheel is open to all businesses and I think is why this is a relatively popular choice.

#5 CRO and improving website experiences – This is the first time that CRO has featured in the top 5, which is again a sign of increased adoption of data-driven marketing as processes improve in organizations who can now run ‘always-on’ improvements using structured AB testing programmes. There is also the option of new lower-cost tools including Google Optimize which is freely available.